BBC has trouble getting signal out in Iran

BBC jammed by Iranian government

Regarding the 'truth' of the BBC THERE IS SERIOUS CHALLENGE to the claims made by what the BBC IS DOING in Iran. The BBC is more in War Format than in helping the People of Iran!

Peter Horrocks used three special lie words in the presentation for the above article! IMPACT IMPARIAL & INDEPENDENT

Recently a 10 year study of the BBC’s reporting on 'Venezuela' was reporting propaganda against Chavez and excluded or distorted what was happening in Venezuela for the People

Anything but impartial and or independent. The impact certainly has affected other Peoples that have 'Trust' for the bbc, but its a trust of the OLD RELIABLE BBC! Not the lacky bbc subject to the money of the corrupt politicians bbc.

The study was conducted by two English Professors, and their Article follows:



A Decade of Propaganda? The BBC�s Reporting of Venezuela.
December 14th 2009, by Lee Salter - Venezuelanalysis.com
Researchers at the University of the West of England, UK, have exposed ongoing and systematic bias in the BBC�s news reporting on Venezuela. Dr Lee Salter and Dr Dave Weltman analysed ten years of BBC reports on Venezuela since the first election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in an ongoing research project, and their findings so far show that the BBC�s reporting falls short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy.

The researchers looked at 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008 and found that only 3 of those articles mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the Chavez administration. The BBC has failed to report adequately on any of the democratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives, or poverty reduction programmes. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy programme in human history received only a passing mention.

According to the research the BBC seems never to have accepted the legitimacy of the President, insinuating throughout the sample that Chavez lacks electoral support, at one point comparing him to Hitler (�Venezuela�s Dictatorship� 31/08/99).

This undermining of Chavez must be understood in the context of his electoral record: his legitimacy is questioned despite the fact that he has been elected several times with between 56% and 60% of the vote. In contrast victorious parties in UK elections since 1979 have achieved between 35.3% and 43.9% of the vote; the current UK Prime Minister was appointed by his predecessor, and many senior members of the British cabinet have never been elected. It will come as no surprise that their legitimacy is never questioned by the BBC.

Of particular note is the BBC�s response to the military coup in 2002. BBC News published nine articles on the coup on 12th April 2002, all of which were based on the coup leaders� version of events, who were, alongside the 'opposition', championed as saviours of 'the nation'. Although BBC News did report the coup, the only time it mentioned the word 'coup' was as an allegation of government officials and of Chavez�s daughter.

The 'official' BBC explanation was that Chavez �fell�, �quit�, or �resigned� (at best at the behest of the military) after his �mishandling� of 'strikes' (which, as Hardy [2007] reminds us, were actually management lockouts) and demonstrations in which his supporters had fired on and killed protestors. In reporting this latter, Adam Easton, the BBC�s correspondent in Caracas wrote �Film footage also caught armed supporters of Mr Chavez firing indiscriminately at the marchers� (�Venezuela�s New Dawn�). The footage in question was broadcast by an oligarch�s channel that had supported the coup and was shown to have been manipulated.

Given that Chavez had won two elections and a constitutional referendum before the coup, it is surprising that the BBC privileged the coup leaders� version of events. The democratic, restorative intentions of the coup leaders were unquestioned.

In â��Venezuelan media: 'It’s over!' â�� the BBC allows the editor of El Universal to declare unopposed 'We have returned once again to democracy!'. Perhaps more significantly, in â��Venezuela’s political disarrayâ�� the BBCâ��s Americas regional editor chose to title a subheading â��Restoring democracyâ��. â��Oil prices fall as Chavez quitsâ�� explains that Chavez quit as a result of a â��popular uprisingâ��.

Crucially, all of the vox pops used in the nine articles were from 'opposition' supporters, and the only voices in support of Chavez were from government officials, Chavez�s daughter or Cuba. It is therefore reasonable to infer from BBC reports that ordinary Venezuelans did not support Chavez; whilst the coup was inaccurately reported as �popular�, the counter coup was not.

The researchers hypothesised that one of the factors underpinning the inaccurate reporting of Venezuela was the BBC�s adherence to the ideological outlook of the Venezuelan elite. Against the weight of historical research into Venezuelan history, the BBC underpins its reporting with the 'exceptionalism thesis' � the idea that Venezuela was the exception among Latin American nations in that its democracy was robust enough to resist dictatorship.

However, historical research suggests this idea is wrong. As Professors Ellner and Salas explain, those who referred to the exceptionalism of Venezuela,

Failed � to draw the connection between political exclusion and the related phenomena of clientelism, on one hand, and the violation of human rights, electoral manipulation, and corruption, on the other. Indeed, they took the legitimacy of the institutional mechanisms that guaranteed stability for granted. The same defects of electoral fraud, corruption, and repression that scholars pointed to as contributing to the crisis of the 1990s had been apparent in previous decades

Certainly the BBC fails to recognise this, and its ignorance of the extreme poverty afflicting so many Venezuelans mitigates against any adequate of understanding of Venezuelan politics. Because the BBC cannot 'see' these factors, the Bolivarian Revolution cannot be understood as a response to decades of poverty and oppression.

Rather, the BBC personalises the Bolivarian movement in Hugo Chavez, himself emerging from nowhere and then imposing himself on Venezuela, as if there was no movement, and as if no elections took place.

For example, the 2004 referendum victory is referred to as �an extraordinary turn around, and one that defies easy explanation� (�Analysis: Venezuela at the Crossroads� 17/8/04). Of course, the victory appeared 'extraordinary' only to persons ignorant of the underlying issues affecting Venezuelan politics.

Consequently, Chavez himself becomes the cause of political conflict. In the world of the BBC it is impossible for class, poverty, human rights abuse or corruption to cause political conflict � the BBC cannot understand the impact of a poverty rate of 70% in 1995 or the fact that a year before Chavez�s first election victory 67% of Venezuelans earned less than $2 a day.

Rather, Venezuelans are painted as mindless sheep being led by a Pied Piper figure, responding only to his call for them to agitate. In the BBC�s world, social and political 'divisions' exist only because of Chavez.

For the BBC, the only legitimate representatives of Venezuelan appear to be the unelected oligarchs behind the 'opposition'. It is the 'opposition' that is Venezuela. �Opposition leaders in Venezuela�, according to the BBC, appeal �to the international community to intervene to protect democratic rule�.

When democracy was 'restored' by a military coup and the imposition of a dictator, the BBC reported that 'Venezuela has looked not to an existing politician, but to the head of the business leaders� association'. When a majority of Venezuelans elect Chavez it is not an act of 'Venezuela', yet when a CIA-backed military coup imposes a corrupt oligarchy, it reflects the will of the whole of Venezuela; not the will of an elite class, but of Venezuela itself.

There is an argument that the inaccuracy and bias of the BBC�s reporting results from the experience of BBC journalists, themselves being from a particular class background living in well-to-do parts of Caracas. From this point of view, they simply don�t see the reality of the situation. If so, it would confirm Charles Hardy�s claim that, we tend to be given �the perspective of an international correspondent� who works in a downtown office building of an opposition newspaper and lives in an apartment in a wealthy neighborhood�.

The big question, however, is whether the BBC can be trusted to report adequately on Latin America. Certainly from their latest reports on Evo Morales�s recent victory in Bolivia it seems unlikely. In the meantime, their audience remains woefully ill-informed.

The research programme is ongoing and the researchers arrive in Caracas at the end of December for the next stage of the project. For further information contact Lee Salter, lee.salter@uwe.ac.uk


— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Source URL (retrieved on Dec 22 2009 - 06:10): http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5003
License: Published under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd). See creativecommons.org for more information.

Yea, and they hacked Twitter too.
:mad:

Galljdaj,do you really believe that Chavez was elected in a very clean election. Remember he is in power when election was done.I was there and I was not able to vote and come to find out somebody vote for me and it was Chavez. Come now...think about that.

Just another media of misunderstanding.

Want us to believe BBC was set up using British tax payer’s money to serve Iranian? What a joke.
Everyone know it is set up to serve the supremacist all along.

Does anyone believe ANY government tells the truth???

They all lie the question to be asked who is free to publicly criticize their government?
What happens when you publicly criticize Great Britain on English soil?
Nothing!

What happens when You criticize the United States on US soil?
Nothing!

What happens when you criticize Venezuela on Venezuela’s soil?
No one knows cause everyone that does disappears! I did find one person who survived the Experience he said it was not pleasant!

What happens when you criticize Iran while in Iran?
Most certainly we know of people that have been tortured, shot, maimed and jailed!

The difference is how people are treated when they criticize any government are they harassed, detained, tortured, murdered, raped, or jailed!

Cowards liars? 'know' and believe?

UNKNOWNS! Should they be unknowns? No! Why are they unknowns? Because the posters choose to lie and hide, Say they know when the best they can do is believe or lie!

The thread is about BBC CLAIM!

I say and said the bbc is lying!

I posted Proof bbc lying and the proof identifies .999901 percent of the BBC REPORTS were not impartial, impact, and or independent! I.E., THE BBC IS A LYING ORGANIZATION!

Does the bbc tell print broadcast the truth? Of course it does! It also is printing lies falsehoods propaganda and is operating in War Format! So why trust what it claims about Iran?

Instead one coward and one lie for two posts about chavez is the best defense the bbc goons(sorry goon show guys) can do!

Iran dissident defies jail fighting for equality

Our online village moron makes claims of media bias and lying even funnier he claims I am lying as he posts Cuban and Venezuelan propaganda sources!
If it was not so pathetic it would almost be funny.
Girliejihad no one buys your special brand of insanity!

In google type in Iran jails dissidents
DO the same with Syria, China, Venezuela, North Korea in fact any country!

The lie is that anything you post has truth to it.
Irans government lies non-stop!
All governments lie!
All media is controlled out right or mildly by special interests!
Some only do the bidding of the government!
The BBC tends to be more honest then most but it’s issue dependent!
On climate change the BBC ignored and failed to report climategate~!








http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1580478/Iran-dissident-defies-jail-fighting-for-equality.html

A woman facing jail in Iran for speaking out against the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denounced the country’s Islamic revolution for “destroying a generation” of Iranians.




Iran’s most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who emerged as the spiritual father of its reform movement, died on Sunday. He was 87.

For years, Montazeri had accused the country’s ruling Islamic establishment of imposing dictatorship in the name of Islam, and he persisted with his criticism following June’s disputed presidential election.

His stance made him a hero to the opposition, and his criticisms were even more stinging because of his status. Montazeri had once been designated to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, as the supreme leader â�� but the two had a falling out a few months before Khomeini died of cancer in 1989.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/20/2009-12-20_irans_grand_ayatollah_hossein_ali_montazeri_dissident_cleric_dies_at_87.html#ixzz0aQfmBdSA



the media should engage all governments even their own with honest unbiased reporting.
We are seeing the American media is in the tank for Barry hook line and stinker.

BBC and Iran.

Well, well. Who provides the living cost for Iranian people. BBC or Iran GOV. BBC is an evil. It will kill you if you fool yourself.

There goes GALLJDAJ,when cornered,calling people names.Not only a radical Muslim but also a believer of a hard core socialist and a little latino dictator Chavez.Ha,ha,ha, what a fool.

Yes of course your liars and cowards!

WHAT PART OF DR. Lee Salter’s work/study or background are you contesting? I don’t see any!

Here’s some for you to start with! But we all know your lying and have nothing but your shouts fron the back of the room!

Skip to main menu
Skip to main content
Skip to Search
Display options | Login | A-Z | Contact UWE | Search the UWE website: Dr Lee Salter
Programme Leader : Journalism
Research: The Journalism Policy and Practice Research Group

Teaching areas
I am the Programme Leader for the Journalism programme and module leader for the second year undergraduate module, Journalism and Public Communications and the MA module Journalism and Democracy. I welcome PhD applications in areas of my research interest.

Research interests
My research interests include journalism and the public sphere and the relationship between media and politics, social movements, political economy of the media and media organisations, and the politics and uses of media technologies (especially the Internet). I also have interests in social and political theory. I am currently working on a book on Online Journalism.

I am currently working on an project on the BBC News Online�s reporting of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, assessing content bias and discourse, and undertaking thematic analysis.

Recently I worked with Mike Jempson of MediaWise on a project commissioned by Dungannon council in Northern Ireland to assess coverage of immigration in local newspapers.

My knowledge exchange activities focus on the UK Independent Media Centre, assisting with legal and policy issues.

Recent publications
Book Chapters:
Salter, L. (2009) �Independent Media Centres and the Law: Some problems for citizen journalism�, in Allan, S. and Thorsen, E. Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives, New York: Peter Lang
Salter, L (2006) 'Mediating Intellectuals' in Bates, D. Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics. London: Palgrave
Salter, L (2005) 'Globalization as a Limited Process: Globalizing Technologies and the Perseverance of the State' in Guaraldo, O. and Tedoldi, L Lo stato dello Stato: Esercizi di riflessione politica fra storia e immainazione (The State of the State: Exercises in reflection on the political and historical imagination)
Salter, L. (2003) 'New Social Movements and the Internet: a Habermasian analysis'. In Ayers, M. and McCaughey, M (2003) Cyberactivism: Critical practices and theories of online activism. New York: Routledge

Journal Articles:
Salter, L. (2008) �The Goods of Community? The Potential of Journalism as a Social Practice� Philosophy of Management 7:1. pp. 33-44
Salter, L. (2008) �Change and Continuity in the 'Information Age' � Global Media and Communication 4(1) pp. 83-94
Salter, L. (2006) 'Democracy & Online News: Indymedia and the Limits of Participatory Media' [online] Scan: Journal of Media, Arts, Culture. 3(1)
Salter. L (2006) 'Review article: Marxism and Media Studies' in Historical Materialism 14(2)
Salter, L. (2005) 'The Contrary Communicative Structures of Journalism and Public Relations' Journalism: Criticism, Theory and Practice 6(1)
Salter, L. (2005) 'Juridification and Colonisation Processes in the Development of the World Wide Web' New Media and Society. 7(3)
Salter, L. (2004) 'Parliament and parliamentarians: the worrying case of the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill'. The Political Quarterly. 75(2)
Salter, L. (2004) 'Structure and Forms of Use: a contribution to understanding the role of the Internet in deliberative democracy'. Information, Communication and Society. 7(2)

Conference papers
I have presented papers on the politics of news representation, journalism, internet research, propaganda, social movement mediation and the politics of technological development at conferences in Pisa, Verona, Amsterdam, Maastricht, and around the UK.

Lee.Salter@uwe.ac.uk

back

Recent and Past Projects :
'Colonisation Tendencies
in the Development of the
World Wide Web'
New Media and Society, 7(2).
2005.
view abstract >>

Main menuSchool of Creative Arts
UWE home Creative Arts home Links
About us Resources and support Health and safety Courses Research Staff Events and news New and current students Bristol School of Animation SCA Enterprise Office Back to top

Accessibility | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Help
Page last updated Friday 16 October 2009 at 12:36:33 PM

© 2009 University of the West of England, Bristol unless explicitly acknowledged otherwise

Why do we need to read Marxist doctrine?

Doing so warps minds look at yours.
DO nothing with a big ego and no intellect to back it up.
You have dipped your beak in way to much Marxist rhetoric!
Most people don’t bother to read the swill you post.
I admit I often skim it when I see the dubious source.
I would rather see you refute the two postings I made of Iranians claiming the current regime is destroying an entire generation in Iran!

Your claiming different from you, is marxist?

Sound much more like a lie, even at best its a copout! Much more likely you failed to find anything that resembles truth wrong with Dr. Salter or Dr. Weltman, or the University of West of England, that you could concock a related lie!

So you came up with marxist doctrine to hide from!

What is doctrine going to the lil boy? mama tell you don’t read it the boogies will get you?

Is that all you have?

` ~galljdaj+;175029:
Sound much more like a lie, even at best its a copout! Much more likely you failed to find anything that resembles truth wrong with Dr. Salter or Dr. Weltman, or the University of West of England, that you could concock a related lie!

So you came up with marxist doctrine to hide from!

What is doctrine going to the lil boy? mama tell you don’t read it the boogies will get you?

You are a Marxist!
Everything you post is from Marxist sources or leanings!
Need I go on?

How is it the moderator must approve any direct posts to a marxist village moron?

Are you doing the bidding of this news site?
Is that why you seem to have free reign to post the crap you post?
Another post lost to the nether.

More running away excuses??

Just tell everyone about Dr. Salter!

` ~galljdaj+;175044:
Just tell everyone about Dr. Salter!

Lee Salter is a Lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies. School of Cultural Studies. University of the West of England, Bristol. He does NOT use the honorific Dr. You are wrong, girlyboyjihad.

Also, in his work “Between Facts and Lies: The BBCâ��s Representation of the Invasion of Iraq” [URL]http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/library/s66531_3.pdf[/URL], Mr. Salter repeats many debunked lies of the leftist media.

For example:

1) President George Bush of the USA and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK had agreed to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as early as 2002 (The Times, 1st May 2005: p.1), but then needed to manufacture the consent of their publics and of the leaders of other states.

No proof of any need to manufacture or even IF anything was manufactured to lead the public.
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]2) “tenuous â�� and unlikely â�� links between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda asserted by the US government must have contributed to some 70% of Americans believing, against “factual truth”, that the Iraqi government had something to do with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001”
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]No, the leftist media created that lie that Saddam had something to do with 11 September.
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]3) “[SIZE=3][SIZE=3]It seems that British government policy was to create a situation in which President Hussein would be seen to defy the UN, and thereby justify the real objective of regime change. Both governments sought to manipulate public fears â�� about terrorist links and weapons of mass destruction respectively â�� in order to manufacture consent for their intended actions.“[/SIZE][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Actually, there was a credible threat from Iraq under Saddam. Neither government needed to manipulate public fears, but the leftist media made that inane claim and has run with it for the last 7+ years.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]GirlyBoyJihad, you continue to prove that your are NOT an American, NOT a believer in democracy, and that you ARE a supporter of Islamofascist and Commie dictators around the world. That is enough for you to be dismissed as the clueless, ignorant, moronic moonbat that you are.
[/SIZE]

Why you idiot you did all the foot work!!!

fool:
Just tell everyone about Dr. Salter!

Anyone bowing at the HUGO Chavez alter and fawning over the tyranny is a socialist or a marxist,
Yep all I need to know about the man is a PH.D. professor working at a university in socialist England doing a paper on Chavez!
Yeck who cares to read that slop?
What next are you going to revist the body of work related Che Guevara and his mass cullings of people who did not agree with him!
What is it about SOcialism/Marxism that causes people to become so brain dead and murderous?
What more need be said?
Of course your shooting jizm over his body of work but that’s because you bow at the alter of stupidity as well you little murderous hero with the huge head Hugo Chavez.
Next nonsense rhetoric filled post that reeks dirty depends!

Galljdaj,if you are a journalist do not go to the pHILIPPINEDS because your time is limited.They do not person like you

someone struck a nerve

Poor little galljdaj, it is quite ammusing watching him try so hard to defend.

Good work, he is really rattled today.

Maybe he is missing his dead Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri.

wow your almost as stupid as lil billy

What a terrible job of reading and wasting time! Then theres lil billy’s copying! 2nd graders can do better!

Then there the hero of marxism, lil senator commie hunter! What could he comprehend reading Dr. Salter’s Article about his Study? He fails his comprehension test getting a zero! The study is of the BBC! lil boy! Your mama’s not going to be happy with her lil man! But you marxist bigotry score is right up there! Old ronnie paul will let you do all sorts of nice things for him!
You and mama billy should go join a girls gleeclub, they would have all sorts of jobs like your mama to teach you!

Or, you could frame a debate question on Dr. Salter, You’d get lots of takers on that! You can even frame like your a good republican!

Wowser you're obtuse

` ~galljdaj+;175074:
What a terrible job of reading and wasting time! Then theres lil billy’s copying! 2nd graders can do better!

Then there the hero of marxism, lil senator commie hunter! What could he comprehend reading Dr. Salter’s Article about his Study? He fails his comprehension test getting a zero! The study is of the BBC! lil boy! Your mama’s not going to be happy with her lil man! But you marxist bigotry score is right up there! Old ronnie paul will let you do all sorts of nice things for him!
You and mama billy should go join a girls gleeclub, they would have all sorts of jobs like your mama to teach you!

Or, you could frame a debate question on Dr. Salter, You’d get lots of takers on that! You can even frame like your a good republican!

EGADS how is anyone as patently stupid and dishonest as you still walking the face of the earth you have zero common sense.
Hint I don’t care what the good marxist loving Professor likes or dislikes about the BBC.
In fact I don’t care about the BBC or how they report.
The fact remains you’re quoting a man who admits being in bed with Hugo Chavez per your own insipid posting and laughably you don’t understand what’s wrong with that!!!


Your red to the core at least admit what you are!
I admit I’m conservative in thinking!

` ~galljdaj+;175074:
What a terrible job of reading and wasting time! Then theres lil billy’s copying! 2nd graders can do better!

Then there the hero of marxism, lil senator commie hunter! What could he comprehend reading Dr. Salter’s Article about his Study? He fails his comprehension test getting a zero! The study is of the BBC! lil boy! Your mama’s not going to be happy with her lil man! But you marxist bigotry score is right up there! Old ronnie paul will let you do all sorts of nice things for him!
You and mama billy should go join a girls gleeclub, they would have all sorts of jobs like your mama to teach you!

Or, you could frame a debate question on Dr. Salter, You’d get lots of takers on that! You can even frame like your a good republican!

You defend the indefensible, mental midget.
You refuse to defend your comments.

I showed you that Salter is not trustworthy, yet you defend him still?

Typical of a mind dead Commie stooge, like you GirlyBoyJihad.

Wow,everybody is on fire. It is not hard to put Galljdaj on fire. Just pull his ears and his balls will fall of.That is an easy trick.The old farth is smart but lacking in common sense.

Western media’s have been trying to infiltrate the Eastern world since it began. The West wants the East to think more like them, but they cant seem to penetrate the Islamic way of thinking and it drives them insane. I dont agree with Irans ways, but I also think the Western media has a agenda. The top five American news media corporations are either owned or run by jews. How can you deny they dont have an agenda to spread? You cant.

Let us roast Galljdaj until his balls fall of his legs.That would be very interesting show to watch.Sending him to the Philippines is an easy to lose his balls.Unless he hang around at the binny boys joint. It could be very true his passion is binny boys.Hmmmmmmm.....???????. I wonder if the old man is married and have grown childrens.

Chavez is some sort of big man to do all you worry about!

Clearly just his name gets your pants so wet, you use the contitution to wipe yourself off!

So much for your citizenship, throw out the Rule of Law treaties and all! Kill everybody you don’t like because they do what’s right for all Peoples!

You can’t compete when the table is fair! The great debate that you framed question, and ran away the loser just for quiting! No thats your level, no wonder THE WORD chavez TWISTS those lil panties! Seems like you boys are panicked. Everybodys a muslim and a marxist! Their all around you!

Start watching for the new jacket, a new mama likely on the way!

Clearly you say you support the Constitution but

` ~galljdaj+;175163:
Clearly just his name gets your pants so wet, you use the contitution to wipe yourself off!

So much for your citizenship, throw out the Rule of Law treaties and all! Kill everybody you don’t like because they do what’s right for all Peoples!

You can’t compete when the table is fair! The great debate that you framed question, and ran away the loser just for quiting! No thats your level, no wonder THE WORD chavez TWISTS those lil panties! Seems like you boys are panicked. Everybodys a muslim and a marxist! Their all around you!

Start watching for the new jacket, a new mama likely on the way!

Then you post from groups of people who want to destroy this grand experiment known as America!
Point blank in your face you can’t have it both ways.
Either you support the Constitution or you don’t if you do then you can’t believe in the Marxist swill you post.
If you choose to post from sources that support deep deep Socialism/Marxism like granma cu (cu=cuba) or any Government controlled Venezuelan source a then you’re the liar you claim everyone else is.
What makes people dislike you is they all know you are a liar.
It’s not your message it’s your dishonesty.

` ~galljdaj+;175163:
Clearly just his name gets your pants so wet, you use the contitution to wipe yourself off!

So much for your citizenship, throw out the Rule of Law treaties and all! Kill everybody you don’t like because they do what’s right for all Peoples!

You can’t compete when the table is fair! The great debate that you framed question, and ran away the loser just for quiting! No thats your level, no wonder THE WORD chavez TWISTS those lil panties! Seems like you boys are panicked. Everybodys a muslim and a marxist! Their all around you!

Start watching for the new jacket, a new mama likely on the way!

Just to let you know, GirlyBoyJihad, you cannot compete under any circumstances. You are continually debunked, degraded, and proven to be a liar. Since you defend Muslims and Marxists, you share in their degradation and humiliation, mental midget.

How more incompetent and ignorant will you show the world that you are?

American idiots claiming 'British Professors are commies!'

The lil witch hunters are up and about again!

Two of the crazies want to be republican senators!

Merely by them making claims, 'they prove'! That’s not senator material! you clowns are gods!

You two have to be two of the dumbest of the dumb! I.E., TO Write you 'BELIEVE(proved) WHAT YOU WRITE!'

Fish floping on the bottom of a boat flop because they believe just like you!

Right back at you!

` ~galljdaj+;175374:
The lil witch hunters are up and about again!

Two of the crazies want to be republican senators!

Merely by them making claims, 'they prove'! That’s not senator material! you clowns are gods!

You two have to be two of the dumbest of the dumb! I.E., TO Write you 'BELIEVE(proved) WHAT YOU WRITE!'

Fish floping on the bottom of a boat flop because they believe just like you!

Just because you believe in your Marxist swill makes you right?
Not hardly!
You’re wrong about everything you post!
Name a Modern day professor in a Socialist country that is not a dyed in the wool RED loving Marxist or far far left Liberal.
The man you claim is not a Marxist is doing a piece on Hugo!
Ummm Duh!
If that doesn’t say something to you then well that dumb azz your talking about is you...well duh everyone knows your more dense then an Oak tree.
Every post you post just confirms your village idiocy!

Right back at you!

` ~galljdaj+;175374:
The lil witch hunters are up and about again!

Two of the crazies want to be republican senators!

Merely by them making claims, 'they prove'! That’s not senator material! you clowns are gods!

You two have to be two of the dumbest of the dumb! I.E., TO Write you 'BELIEVE(proved) WHAT YOU WRITE!'

Fish floping on the bottom of a boat flop because they believe just like you!

Just because you believe in your Marxist swill makes you right?
Not hardly!
You’re wrong about everything you post!
Name a Modern day professor in a Socialist country that is not a dyed in the wool RED loving Marxist or far far left Liberal.
The man you claim is not a Marxist is doing a piece on Hugo!
Ummm Duh!
If that doesn’t say something to you then well that dumb azz your talking about is you...well duh everyone knows your more dense then an Oak tree.
Every post you post just confirms your village idiocy!
Honestly how do people like you get so vapid, brainwashed and warped?
Go crawl back into your cave.

Well your words say your as dumb as I say you are!

Now your claiming people are EVERYTHING they post. You claim I am a marxist, a commie, because I post articles from Cuban and Venezuelan Sites. You say I am marxist and commie because I posted an article by british professors writting about the bbc because the bbc is practicing propaganda. So you claim I am what I have posted irregardless of the written material or my reasons of posting the article!

Well look at your side of your coin! Your SIDE are Murderers! You included. Dictators! Cowards! Torturers! Haters of Rule of Law! And more when using your grade school reasoning!

So you don’r understan yet what I am doing! But your scared lil kids' brain of two cells tell you what you post! Only able to post claims! You have yet to quote one item I have posted, followed by your analysis of it, then followed by your Proof of the error! Yet you have made hundreds or more claims, and now you claim your claims as proof! Now that is dumbest of the dumb!

Not only your words are Stupid!!

The policy you employee and support is extremely stupid and harmful to Our Country!

One Such Policy and action of yours, is the hatred for Venezuela through Chavez attacks, such as jumping up and down with glee at the Failure of Our Government to obey Our Own Rule of Law! The extridition of wanted criminals and terrorists! The use of Taxpayer monies to do what is criminal in the USA, SUBVERT A GOVERNMENT, in particular Venezuela’s Democratically elected government!

The result of the stupidity you employee and support is next year, 600,000 barrels of venezuelan oil per day will start going to China instead of the USA! Oil we will have to replace at higher cost! All because of Our and your supported covert acts such as coups, failure to obey Our Law, and the funding of criminals in Venezuela!

I call you a treasonist!

Such is your right

looser:
The policy you employee and support is extremely stupid and harmful to Our Country!

One Such Policy and action of yours, is the hatred for Venezuela through Chavez attacks, such as jumping up and down with glee at the Failure of Our Government to obey Our Own Rule of Law! The extridition of wanted criminals and terrorists! The use of Taxpayer monies to do what is criminal in the USA, SUBVERT A GOVERNMENT, in particular Venezuela’s Democratically elected government!

The result of the stupidity you employee and support is next year, 600,000 barrels of venezuelan oil per day will start going to China instead of the USA! Oil we will have to replace at higher cost! All because of Our and your supported covert acts such as coups, failure to obey Our Law, and the funding of criminals in Venezuela!

I call you a treasonist!

Democratically elected fraud!
You support a naked dictator!
As USUAL!

I call you a piece of Sh!t



Venezuela: Academics' Study Backs Fraud Claim In Chavez Election
David Luhnow And Jose De Cordoba, The Wall Street Journal

2004 September 07 - Two Venezuelan academics claim to have found statistical evidence of fraud in last month’s referendum on President Hugo Chavez, fueling the opposition’s claims of a rigged vote and raising the possibility that despite Mr. Chavez’s victory, the country’s tense standoff will continue.

The claims were made Sunday by Ricardo Hausmann, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and former chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Roberto Rigobon, a professor of applied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

The pair issued a report that tried to measure the possibility that the vote was clean using two separate ****yses of the official results. In both cases, they said, the chances of a clean vote were less than one in 100.

Members of a civic group called Sumate that organized the referendum, which Mr. Chavez won by a 59% to 41% margin, seized on the study to suggest Mr. Chavez had won by tampering with the electronic-voting machines used in the contest. “We don’t think the truth about the referendum has been revealed yet," Alejandro Plaz, a spokesman for Sumate, told reporters in presenting Mr. Hausmann’s study Sunday. Sumate requested help from the academics in ****yzing the referendum data but didn’t pay for the study.

Mr. Chavez’s government reacted with disbelief to the claims, saying the opposition’s previous claims of fraud had so far proved incorrect. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said members of the Atlanta-based Carter Center and the Organization of American States had already validated the result. “No one believes in their theories anymore because three weeks have gone by and they haven’t been able to prove anything," Mr. Rangel said.

Members of the Carter Center and the OAS were unreachable for comment yesterday. But both organizations have consistently stood by their findings in the past weeks and watched as other theories of fraud fell short under scrutiny.

The results of the study, however, prompted some independent experts on computer voting to call on the Venezuelan government to open up all aspects of the election — including electronic codes from voting machines — to public scrutiny.

“The Hausmann/Rigobon study is more credible than many of the other allegations being thrown around," said Aviel Rubin, a computer-science professor at Johns Hopkins University who has warned about security flaws with electronic voting. Mr. Rubin recently conducted a study of opposition claims that machines were rigged to limit the number of votes against Mr. Chavez and concluded the claims were highly unlikely.

“I would encourage the Venezuelan government to open up all aspects of the election to public inspection, not just to selected observers. That includes all of the paper ballots, the source code in the voting machines, the random generators ... that were used to pick the sites to audit," he said in an e-mail interview.

The study by Messrs. Hausmann and Rigobon suggested the government may have tampered with only some of the machines, leaving others clean for observers to audit. They said the sample used for the audit, which was carried out days after the election, wasn’t randomly chosen and limited to the “clean” machines.

The study says the computer that determined which ballot boxes were to be subjected to a recount belonged to Venezuelan election officials. However, the Carter Center’s Jennifer McCoy has said the group tested and verified the computer program used to select the sample.

The study compared the votes obtained by the opposition during the recall vote with the signatures gathered in November 2003 requesting the referendum. For the recounted votes, the correlation between the number of “yes” votes matched the 2003 petition numbers at a rate that was 10% higher than in the ballot boxes that weren’t recounted. They calculate the probability of this taking place by chance at less than 1%.

The government’s sample recount “was not a random sample, and I can say that with 99% confidence," Mr. Hausmann said in a telephone interview.

The academics used another technique to look for suspicious patterns in the results, using the 2003 petition and an exit poll on the day of the vote as a vague measure of a voter’s intention. Because both measures are imperfect for different reasons, the academics argued, the measures should make different mistakes in predicting the final result.

But the academics found that each method had similar margins of error when compared with the official results, something that would happen only one in 100 times without fraud, they argued.


You don’t even know the meaning of rule of law much less how it should be applied!
Worse you attempt to make UN international laws as binding to United States foreign policy and that IS TREASON!
As I pointed out you are what you post!
You post crap and I bet you eat crap so there for you are crap.
Unless you take steps to point out why something is wrong!
You as usual post communist propaganda and claim it’s truth or that it proves something what else is anyone to believe?
Your a commie pinko shill I bet you made McCarthy’s LIST!

As far as treason goes wanna try and prove that YOU Marxist pos.
Try posting something useful and not paid for by Commie scum.

The Systematic Annihilation of the Right to Vote in Venezuela

The Systematic Annihilation of the Right to Vote in Venezuela
From http://esdata.info

14.11.2007 | Editor’s note: fellow bloggers are reporting the launching of a website that deals with the many issues that Venezuela’s electoral system has. With the aid of presentations, research, peer-reviewed internationally published papers and mathematic models the site provides solid proof of the utter unreliability of Venezuela’s electoral system. Please visit http://esdata.info

Summary

Millions of Venezuelans are convinced that their votes are being manipulated, that the official results of their elections do not reflect the will of the electorate and that they have voted but not elected. Ever since the Recall Referendum on August 15th 2004 (RR 04), an unceasing debate began, continuing with the presidential election of December 3rd 2006 (3D 06).

The National Electoral Council�s (CNE) bias, the incorporation of challenged voting and identification technologies, the bloating of the electoral registry (REP), the millions of unrequested voter migrations, the announcement of incomplete and uncertified results and the refusal to give the opposition essential information about the electoral process are part of the evidence accumulated that questions the behavior of this electoral institution.

This document chronicles how the CNE�s bias came about and the violation of the fundamental principles that define the right to vote (impartiality, transparency and confidence in the secrecy of the ballot), along with summaries of papers presented by distinguished professionals and scientists regarding the official electoral results and the REP since RR 04.

Finally we conclude that the official electoral results display critical irregularities and do not reflect the will of the people. If the total balance within the CNE is not restored to guarantee the right to integral supervision of elections, a new REP is not created and the essential information made available to all parties, the government will have closed off elections as the ideal medium through which to alternate our representatives and resolve our political conflicts.

Preliminary note

All ****yses and conclusions presented here are based upon official data from the CNE and other government institutions, published in written reports or available on their websites. We must emphasize, however, that it has not been possible to gain access to essential official documents [1] despite them being public and are or should be available through the CNE.


http://www.esdata.info/pdf/right-to-vote.pdf

Your old 2004 so called scandal was debunked! Your treasonous scandal is today's news!

So! Answer to your scandal! Your so called study is part of the Criminal activity I accused you and those in Our Government of treason for. I had read the study and the Journal, and I checked it out! Lies and propaganda! All old news debunked! So when you start paying more for fuels, we will also, I call what you and the rest of the republicans have done and are doing! Treason!

Here is the debunk of the wall street lies!

the debunk:

Analysis of The Wall Street Journal Editorial-Page Coverage of Venezuela
February 13th 2005, by Venezuela Information Office
In the United States, the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) editorial page maintains a conservative and Republican viewpoint. Robert Bartley, who took over the editorial page for the WSJ in 1972 and passed away in 2003, invited many neo-conservative and supply-side economic intellectuals to voice their opinion in the paper’s editorial section. In its own words, the WSJ editorial page is

united by the mantra 'free markets and free people,' the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s 'Wealth of Nations.' So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities. If these principles sound unexceptionable in theory, applying them to current issues is often unfashionable and controversial.(1) (1)

Hence, according to the National Review, a right-wing policy magazine, 'Journal editorials became must-reading for every right-leaning policy analyst in Washington.'(2) (2)

A recent survey led by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (PRCPP), with the participation of 547 journalists and media executives, shows that, among journalists, the WSJ is defined as a conservative news agency, along with Fox News Channel and The Washington Times. According to the report,

Journalists did see ideology at one outlet: 'The single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance � either liberal or conservative � is Fox News Channel,' Pew reported. More than two-thirds of national journalists (69 percent) tagged FNC as a conservative news organization, followed by The Washington Times (9 percent) and The Wall Street Journal (8 percent).(3) (3)

In terms of Venezuela, the WSJ editorial page has vehemently attacked the government and President Chavez. Led by editorials by Mary Anastasia O’Grady, the WSJ has repeatedly published unbalanced and inaccurate information on Venezuela, President Chavez, and the government’s policies.

One must take into account that in the United States, the editorial board operates independent of the news section. This clear division between the two groups permits the editorial board to express its own opinions free of those of the news reporters.

With this in mind, among journalism and academic circles, O’Grady has the reputation of being ultra-conservative and therefore holding very little credibility. While O’Grady has nothing positive to say about President Chavez and his policies, Wall Street Journal reporters have reported favorably on the government. For instance, Wall Street Journal reporter Jose de Cordoba recently penned the article, 'As Venezuela Tilts Left, a Rum Mogul Reaches Out to Poor,' (11-10-2004) on the Proyecto Alcatraz, a social rehabilitation program for gang members initiated by Alberto Vollmer, a rum magnate and member of the opposition. This article depicts a situation of coexistence and cooperation between the government and opposition members.

According to the Wall Street Journal website, Mary Anastasia O’Grady has worked as an options strategist for Advest Inc., Thomson McKinnon Securities, and Merrill Lynch & Co. More importantly, she has been awarded the Inter American Press Association’s (IAPA)â��an association of private media owners and corporationsâ��Daily Gleaner Award for editorial commentary and an honorable mention in IAPA’s opinion award category in 1999.(4) (4) O’Grady has also developed reports for the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington DC 'whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.'(5) (5)

A detailed analysis of O’Grady’s editorials on Venezuela throughout 2004 and 2005 follows. Overall, O’Grady’s analyses are biased and one-sided, presenting multiple opinions by opposition members and Chavez critics and failing to include even brief mentions of the positive contributions by the Chavez administration to the Venezuelan population. Government voices are notably absent and she constantly uses harsh and disrespectful language to describe Chavez and his policies.

Should Chavez Be on the List of Terrorism Supporters?
January 21, 2005

Following the Rodrigo Granda affair, this piece rehashes unproven claims that President Hugo Chavez 'is harboring Colombian terrorists,' going as far as asking whether Chavez should be put on the list of terrorism sponsors. She highlights that Granda held Venezuela citizenship and lived comfortably in Caracas, calls 'Chavez’s denials that he knew about Grandaâ�¦implausible,' and suggests that Interpol had requested Granda one year prior to his abduction. The author also develops weak connections between Ali Rodriguez and FARC commanders, links based on their posts on the editorial board of an Argentine left-leaning magazine. Nowhere does she mention that Interpol submitted their request for Granda on January 9, 2005, nearly one month after the man’s kidnapping on Venezuelan soil. She also neglects the fact that Venezuela has made concerted efforts at protecting its border and has actively engaged in drug interdiction operations. Additionally, Granda traveled extensively throughout the region, including multiple entrances into Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and other Latin American and European nations, and was never sought by Colombian authorities or Interpol.

O’Grady, without a single piece of evidence, also purports that Chavez 'may be bent on arming his revolutionary cadres all over South America,' suggesting that Castro and Chavez are on a mission 'to expand their influence throughout the region' and use the 'FARC’s arms and narcotics trading networkâ�¦to spreading the Chavez revolution.'

Night Falls on Caracas, with No Carter in Sight
December 3, 2004.

In this editorial, O’Grady has the audacity to criticize former US President Jimmy Carter for monitoring and validating the results of the August 15th referendum that reconfirmed President Chavez in office. She repeats discredited arguments of fraud, alleging that Chavez defeated the recall 'through tampering with the vote and other chicanery.' The article also provides ridiculous commentary by emphasizing the 'anti-Semitic overtones

The Rest of the debunk of the Old lies

of a police search of a Jewish school and Chavez’s wish to control the police under the Ministry of the Interior to 'ensnare his opponents.'

Furthermore, O’Grady falsely asserts that the Law of Social Responsibility 'would give the government the discretionary censorship powers without legal recourse' and fails to provide the real reasons for the law’s implementation, including the protection of minors, the promotion of domestic production, and the education of the citizenry.

Chavez’s Yankee-Baiting Takes a Sinister Turn
October 15, 2004.

This article focuses on Sumate and the prosecution of its leaders for treason. Falsely labeling the opposition-aligned organization 'a nonpartisan Venezuelan NGO with a goal of strengthening the country’s democracy,' O’Grady ignored Maria Corina Machado’s presence at the swearing in of illegal President Pedro Carmona and Sumate’s illegal release of erroneous exit poll data designed to influence the outcome of the election. She also rehashes fraud claims, using the debunked Hausmann and Rigobon report, 'En busca del cisne Negro: Analisis sobre la evidencia estadística sobre fraude electoral en Venezuela,' as proof.

Venezuela’s Oil-for-MiGs Program
September 24, 2004.

This article brings up preposterous claims that Venezuela 'seems fully prepared to menace neighboring states,' quoting a UPI story which purportedly suggests that Venezuela and Colombia are on the verge of war. O’Grady places significant emphasis on Venezuela’s purchase of weapons. However, instead of highlighting the purchase of helicopters to help protect its borders from illegal incursions into Venezuelan territory, O’Grady stresses the alleged purchase of MiGs from Russia as part of an arms build-up directed against Colombia. These allegations, introduced by UPI on September 14th, have been repeatedly denied by Venezuelan officials and have never been substantiated.

Why the EU Skipped the Chavez Vote
August 27, 2004.

O’Grady criticizes the referendum process and President Jimmy Carter’s monitoring and validation of the results. According to this article, several OAS monitors criticized President Chavez for his 'pre-election maneuvers that tilted the table in his favor through control of the electoral apparatus and indirect intimidation.' She calls Chavez’s 'intimidation factorâ�¦legendary' and implies that Chavez rigged the Smartmatic machines used to count the votes. The editorial is also unfairly balanced, relying heavily on quotes by Sumate and failing to include comments from government officials or the Carter Center.

Observers Rush to Judgment in Caracas
August 20, 2004.

This editorial also criticizes Jimmy Carter and Cesar Gaviria for what O’Grady deems 'too hastily' validating the August 15th results. She disapproves of the validation process, asserting that the monitors 'were not allowed to check [the quick count] against ballots the machines issued to voters as confirmation that their votes were properly registered.' She falsely claims that Venezuelans had 'been voting two-to-one against Chavez in opinion polls' and were presumably robbed by machines that were tampered with to favor the government. She also brings up the Penn, Schoen, and Berland exit poll as showing that Chavez only held 41 percent of the country’s vote. However, she fails to mention Sumate, an opposition-aligned group, contracted the poll and used it illegally to influence the elections outcome. Later, Jimmy Carter asserted that Sumate 'deliberately distributed this erroneous exit poll data in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line.' To end the article, O’Grady declares that 'endorsement of this referendum without a fair auditâ�¦is tantamount to yielding to terrorism,' clearly implying that Venezuela under Chavez is a terrorist state.

Chavez’s Cheatin' Heart
August 6, 2004.

Despite evidence showing that Chavez held clear advantages coming into the referendum, O’Grady urged the international community to ignore the data and expressed that she simply 'did not buy' the fact that Chavez could potentially win. She goes on to assert that '(t)here has never been much reason to doubt that Mr. Chavez would pull out all stops to remain power,' stops that included, according to O’Grady, the release of suspicious pro-Chavez poll numbers, intimidation, and harassment. Furthermore, she unfairly refers to the missions as 'state handouts' that 'could pay off at the polls.' Her position on the referendum is blatantly unbalanced and she fails to account for shady actions by the opposition.

Winning Hearts and Minds Inside the Beltway
April 9, 2004.

In this editorial, O’Grady laughs at Venezuela’s hiring of public relations firm Patton Boggs to improve US-Venezuelan relations. She compares Chavez' efforts to '(buy) influence in Washington' to Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s efforts in the mid-1990s and criticizes the presumed 1 million dollars received by the PR company to help Venezuela. She then goes on to mistakenly assert that Chavez has paramilitary groups to back him, has provided 'safe haven to Colombian guerrillas,' and is funding indigenous movements in Bolivia. She also criticizes Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) for supporting Chavez and condemning the April 2002 coup.

Chavez’s Nasty Battle Against the Popular Will
March 19, 2004.

In this editorial, O’Grady openly criticizes President Chavez and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), citing that Dodd defended Chavez during the April 2002 coup, which the author contends was 'stage-managed' by the Venezuelan President. She asserts that during the coup Chavez ordered the military, which refused to comply, 'to fire on unarmed demonstrators,' a completely unsupported allegation that she would have no way of verifying.

O’Grady also accuses Chavez of 'employing delay and obstruction' throughout the signature collection process for the August 15th referendum, stating that the CNE, 'which he controls, ruled that there (were) only 1.8 million valid signatures, charging, among other things, that thousands of signers (were) disqualified because they received help in printing their names and identification numbers next to their signatures.'

President Chavez, as permitted under the law, challenged the signature process within a democratic and legal framework. Signatures were gathered according to terms established by the National Electoral Committee and agreed to by both the government and the opposition. Many of the signatures presented, however, were in direct violation of these preset rules: over 375,000 signatures, or more than 10 percent of the required total, belonged to minors, foreigners, dead people, and people who signed twice and were invalidated. All signatures were carefully verified and made available for examination by the Venezuelan public between May 27th and May 31st to confirm that they were indeed invalid. Furthermore, the OAS and the Carter Center, repeatedly monitored this process, noting on March 2, 2004, that they 'support the efforts of the CNE and of the promoters to work together to establish guarantees necessary to ensure that all of the citizens who wish to take advantage of this resource may do so�and urge them to continue in this direction.' It is clear that President Chavez acted within democratic parameters and, as established in the Constitution, allowed for the referendum to be scheduled and to take place.

O’Grady portrays the Venezuelan government as a violent repressive apparatus; National Guard troops shoot rubber bullets, beat unarmed civilians, and fire tear gas into groups of people, while reporters are 'allowedâ�¦to film most of this, undoubtedly well aware that it would be televised and serve as a warning to future demonstrators.' She ends the piece by adding that Chavez’s 'American-bashing and destruction of political rights make it clear that he wants oil-rich Venezuela to mirror Cuba.'

Time is Running Out to Rescue Venezuela
March 5, 2004.

This editorial suggests that Fidel Castro, following lessons learned after the speedy revolutionary process undergone by Chile during the Allende presidency in the early 1970s, has encouraged Chavez to pursue 'the methodical consolidation of absolute authority under the guise of 'democracy.'' With the support of 'paramilitaries and community snoopers,' Chavez has, according to O’Grady, 'militarized the government, packed the Supreme Court, imported a large number of Cubans to indoctrinate the citizenry, and began choking off the private sector with capital and price controls.' She establishes that '(t)he noose is already so tight around the neck of what is left of the democracy that it may not be able to escape.' Nowhere does she mention the benefits of the social missions or the unconstructive actions, such as the crippling 2003 oil strike, led by the opposition.

O’Grady then encourages the international community to challenge Chavez and let him know 'that it will not tolerate the militarization of democracyâ�¦(and allow) the Chavez virusâ�¦infect other Latin nations.' She purports that Bolivia 'is already at risk' and that Chavez and Castro provided funding and organizational advise to the indigenous movements that led to dismissal of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in October 2003.

Money Fun In the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez
February 13, 2004.

In this piece, O’Grady places all the blame for the country’s economic woes on the shoulders of President Chavez. She suggests that, during his time in prison after the 1992 attempted coup, Chavez’s reading list 'seems to have been so skimpy on economics and so heavy on Machiavelli.' She fails to recognize that the 2003 illegal oil strike led by the country’s opposition severely hindered the economy, leading to a devastating recession.

She also alleges that Chavez will somehow try to impede the recall referendum, asserting that the 'permutations and combinations of rabbits that Mr. Chavez could pull out of his hat to derail or delay the recall are numerous.' She then asserts that to 'calm the hungry masses' implored the Central Bank to grant him one billion dollars to benefit the people, and, when this request was denied, Chavez devalued the bolivar. According to O’Grady, this devaluation served 'as a way to pay for his Bolivarian 'missions,' government projects that might restore his popularity long enough to allow him to survive the recall, or survive an audacious decision to squelch it.' It is clear that at any mention of the missions, O’Grady fails to elaborate on their success at improving literacy rates and providing healthcare for the first time in Venezuelan history to thousands of previously marginalized sectors of the population.

She furthers her criticism of Chavez by pointing out that Chavez’s 'political philosophy precludes any economic policies that might actually boost real living standards' and that the Venezuelan President 'opposes open markets, liberalized prices, deregulation, property rights and competition.' She also further diminishes the value of the missions and other social policies by writing that Chavez’s plan is 'that his populist blitz will reap sufficient goodwill among some portion of the undecided, even if a majority remain on the sidelines in disgust.'

______________________

Overall, Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s reporting on Venezuela is overwhelmingly negative and unbalanced and she never presents the government’s perspective or provides comments from pro-Chavez spokespeople. Furthermore, O’Grady constantly reiterates a series of unsubstantiated claims, including Chavez’s support for revolutionary movements in Colombia and Bolivia, Venezuela’s plan to purchase MiGs from Russia, and allegations of fraud during the internationally monitored August 15th referendum.

Likewise, she criticizes ex-President Jimmy Carter and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) for opening up to the Chavez administration, accepting his overwhelming electoral victories, and trying to constructively work with him. Finally, she unjustly blames President Chavez for Venezuela’s economic woes, repeatedly failing to mention the crippling 2002-2003 oil strike, the April 2002 destabilization attempt, and other illegal activities perpetrated by the opposition. With this in mind, it is impossible to consider O’Grady a credible and fair source on Venezuela.




— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —



(1) (6) http://www.opinionjournal.com/about/philosophy.html (7)

(2) (8) Bartlett, Bruce. 'A Beacon Light.' National Review, December 24, 2003. http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200312240917.asp (9)

(3) (10) http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=214 (11)

(4) (12) http://www.opinionjournal.com/bios/bio_ogrady.html (13)

(5) (14) http://www.heritage.org/about/ (15)


— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the U.S. public about contemporary Venezuela, and receives its funding from the government of Venezuela. More information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington DC, United States of America.
http://www.veninfo.org/ (16)

Links:
(1) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftn1
(2) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftn2
(3) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftn3
(4) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftn4
(5) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftn5
(6) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftnref1
(7) http://www.opinionjournal.com/about/philosophy.html
(8) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftnref2
(9) http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200312240917.asp
(10) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftnref3
(11) http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=214
(12) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftnref4
(13) http://www.opinionjournal.com/bios/bio_ogrady.html
(14) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935#_ftnref5
(15) http://www.heritage.org/about/
(16) http://www.veninfo.org/



— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Source URL (retrieved on Dec 25 2009 - 22:27): http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/935
License: Published under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd). See creativecommons.org for more information.

Comment: The lil coward dug up Old lies that have been long debunked to JUSTIFY his Treason! At the very best he can claim stupidity for not checking out the lies and fabrications he gets in the media. All of the references and links are included! in the two posts that clearly show his latest post are lies!

A lesson for the cowardly lie poster!!

The lil coward posts and reposts lies hoping they will be believed! He claims he knows best! He has the power of a god! He simply or simple minded knows! But he is being pressed with questions, and feels attacked! He sees the posting of Truth as an attack on him personally!

The poor selfcentered lil greedy american sees himself more important than the Truth, More important than the Rule of Law, and more important than Our Constitution!

The rest of the story on the US PROPAGANDA SMEAR of the Venezuelan Election, these cowards are using to ignore the Oil 600000 barrels a day that will nolonger be sold to the USA! because of the failures of Our republicans and now a continuation of the failures by the Obama Administration! Here we are! ~5YEARS LATER AFTER BEING DEBUNKED, THE LIL COWARDS ARE MAKING THE SAME CLAIMS OF VOTER FRAUD, AND CITING THE SAME FALSE DEBUNKED DATA!

Repeating the same lie theory!

The debunk Article:

Black Swans, Conspiracy Theories, and the Quixotic Search for Fraud in Venezuela
September 20th 2004, by Mark Weisbrot, David Rosnick, and Todd Tucker - CEPR
Executive Summary

On September 3, economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and Roberto Rigobon of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, presented econometric results that the authors maintain are evidence of fraud in Venezuela’s August 15 recall referendum. The paper was reported by four major international news outlets and was used to raise doubts about the validity of the referendum among U.S. legislators and policy-makers. It was also used to support claims of fraud by opposition leaders in Venezuela.

In this paper we examine the results presented by Hausmann and Rigobon (1)and find that they provide no evidence of fraud. This concurs with the findings of the Carter Center (September 17), showing that the sample selected on August 18 for an audit of the vote that they observed, was indeed a random sample of all voting centers, and that electronic fraud of the type suggested by Hausmann and Rigobon was therefore impossible.

In this referendum voters expressed their preference (YES or NO) with a touch screen voting machine. The machine then printed out a paper ballot with the voter’s choice, which voters deposited in a ballot box. The audit of 150 voting centers, observed and certified by the Carter Center and the OAS, found that the paper ballots matched the electronic votes within a 0.1 percent margin.

However, Hausmann and Rigobon put forth a theory of electronic fraud that was consistent with a clean audit. According to their illustrative example, suppose the machines were rigged at 3000 polling centers, and the remaining 1580 were randomly selected to be left clean. If the computer program that generated the sample could be fixed to sample only from the clean centers, the electronic votes would match the paper ballots in the audit — in spite of the fraud.

The authors then present two sets of evidence which they claim indicates that fraud of this type took place.

The main problem with their analysis is that, according to their assumptions, the audited sample of 150 voting sites should reflect the true — that is, non-fraudulent — referendum result. Such a large sample provides incontrovertible evidence of the validity of the official results, which were well within the range that would be expected given the results found in the audited sample.

By contrast, the exit poll used by Hausmann and Rigobon, published by the American polling firm Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates found that 59 percent of voters were in favor of the recall (YES), and 41 percent opposed (NO). This was the opposite of the official results certified by the Carter Center and the Organization of American States, in which voters rejected the recall by a margin of 59 percent (NO) to 41 percent (YES).

But the audited sample had only 41.6 percent YES votes. This paper finds that:

· The chances of getting an audited sample, under Hausmann and Rigobon’s assumptions of how it was selected, of 41.6 percent YES, if the true (non-fraudulent) vote were 59 percent YES, are less than one in 28 billion trillion.
· Even if the true vote had the recall barely succeeding with only 50.1 percent YES, the chances of getting an audited sample of 41.6 percent are less than one in a million.

This paper also examines the other statistical evidence presented by Hausmann and Rigobon to support their theory of electronic fraud and finds that it is dependent on implausible assumptions. We conclude that the results that they interpret as evidence of fraud most likely stem from a misspecification in their econometric model.

This issue extends beyond Venezuela, where opposition leaders — including those that control most of the media — have continued to question the results of the referendum. Most importantly, it has considerable implications for the effectiveness of international monitoring in elections. This was one of the most carefully monitored elections in modern history, with both the Carter Center and the Organization of American States playing a major role.

If this level of monitoring and verification by some of the most experienced election observers in the world, in a case where the election was not even close, cannot produce a credible result, then the whole system of international monitoring would have to be called into question. Fortunately this is not the case, as the statistical evidence of electronic fraud in the referendum has turned out not to be valid.

Introduction

On August 15, 2004 Venezuelan voters went to the polls in record numbers and voted by a margin of 59 to 41 percent to allow President Hugo Chávez Frías to serve out the remaining two and a half years of his term. International observers from the Carter Center and the Organization of American States certified the result and conducted an audit of the vote, in which a sample of the touch screen voting machine results were compared to the paper ballot receipts that voters deposited in ballot boxes3 (2).

Despite the overwhelming margin of the vote, the audit, numerous tests and controls, the certification of the international observers, and the lack of any material evidence of fraud, numerous opposition leaders — including much of the Venezuelan media — continue to insist that a massive fraud took place. Opposition exit polls, including one in which voters were interviewed by the opposition group Súmate for the U.S. polling firm Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates4 (3) claim to have found the opposite result: the Penn & Schoen exit poll, which reported having canvassed 20,000 people and with a margin of error of less than one percent, alleged that Chávez had been recalled by a margin of 59 to 41 percent. The firm stands by its reported exit poll numbers and insists that the election was stolen5 (4).

On September 3, economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and Roberto Rigobon of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, presented econometric results that the authors maintain are evidence of fraud6 (5). The paper was reported by four major international news outlets7 (6) and used to raise doubts about the validity of the referendum among U.S. legislators and policy-makers. In their conclusion, the authors cite the philosopher of science Karl Popper, that 'observing 1000 white swans does not prove the thesis that all swans are white. However, observing one black swan allows this thesis to be rejected. Paraphrasing Popper, our white swan is that there was no fraud. The results that we have obtained constitute a black swan’8 (7).

In this paper we evaluate this evidence and consider whether there is any reason to believe that electronic fraud of the type suggested by Hausmann and Rigobon might have occurred in the recent Venezuelan referendum.

The Alleged Fraud

Before turning to Hausmann and Rigobon’s econometric evidence, it is necessary to explain the type of fraud that the authors are talking about, and how it would have to have been carried out. It is not the ordinary type of fraud that occurs in many elections, i.e. ineligible voters with fake i.d.'s, voting more than once, or stuffing of ballot boxes. Rather, the fraud considered in Hausmann and Rigobon’s paper is electronic fraud and involves rigging the voting machines that were used in the election, so as to change the votes from Sí (to recall the president) to No.

In this referendum voters expressed their preference (sí or no) with a touch screen voting machine. The machine then printed out a paper ballot with the voter’s choice, which voters deposited in a ballot box.

Fraud in this system is thus a difficult and risky enterprise: any rigging of the machines could be caught quite easily by comparison with the paper ballots at any polling center. In an audit after the vote, the National Electoral Council, together with international observers, drew a sample of 150 polling centers (3 percent of the 4580 centers) and compared the machine results to the paper ballots. The results matched almost perfectly — with 0.1 percent difference9 (8) — a number that is statistically insignificant and easily explainable by the likelihood that some voters might have failed to deposit their paper ballots.

It is of course theoretically possible to stuff the sampled ballot boxes to match rigged machines, as would have been necessary in the previously offered 'cap' theory of the fraud. This was the basis of an opposition argument that the voting machines had been programmed to put a limit on the number of 'Yes' votes. But this was not plausible, as Jennifer McCoy of the Carter Center explained to those alleging this type of fraud:

The only way the boxes could have been altered would be for the military-historically the custodians of election material in Venezuela-to have reprogrammed 19,200 voting machines to print out new paper receipts with the proper date, time and serial code and in the proper number of Yes and No votes to match the electronic result, and to have reinserted these into the proper ballot boxes. All of this in garrisons spread across 22 states, between Monday and Wednesday, with nobody revealing the fraud. We considered this to be supremely implausible10 (9).

This argument was also refuted when computer scientists Aviel Rubin and Adam Stubblefield of Johns Hopkins, and Edward W. Felten of Princeton showed that the number of machines that reported the same numbers was within the range that could be expected by random occurrence11 (10).

Hausmann and Rigobon also reject the theory of the caps. But they put forth another theory of electronic fraud that does not require any ballot box stuffing. To take their hypothetical example: suppose there are 3000 voting centers where the machines are rigged, and the CNE randomly selects the remaining 1580 centers to be clean. The electoral authorities then fix the program that randomly selects a sample of 150 centers for auditing, so that the sample is selected from only the 1580 clean centers. The electronic results from these centers would then match the paper ballots, and the audited sample would show the election to be clean.

The biggest technical problem with this type of fraud — aside from rigging the machines without anyone finding out12 (11) — is to make sure that the sample is chosen from the 'clean' polling centers. To do this, the CNE would have to have fooled the Carter Center, OAS, and other international observers into thinking it was randomly selecting a sample to be audited from the total universe of centers, while secretly substituting a program that selected only from the 'clean' voting centers13 (12). It is worth noting that the sample was chosen in front of a live television audience, as well as the international observers from the Carter Center, the Organization of American States, and another group of European observers14 (13).

In response to a request by the opposition group Súmate to consider the theory and evidence offered by Hausmann and Rigobon, the Carter Center examined the program that was used to generate the sample. The Center’s report (issued Friday, September 17) states:

The CNE requested a group of university professors to develop a sample generation program for the 2nd audit. The program is written in Pascal for the Delphi environment.

The program receives a 1 to 8 digit seed. The CNE delivered to the international observers the source code, the executable code, the input file, and the sample. Carter Center experts analyzed the program and concluded:

1. The program generates exactly the same sample given the same seed.
2. The program generates a different sample given a different seed.
3. The program generates a sample of voting stations (mesas) based on the universe of mesas that have voting machines.
4. The source code delivered produces the executable file delivered.
5. The input file used to generate the sample is missing only six of 8,147 voting stations (mesas). The input file has one missing voting center.
6. The program, when run enough times, includes each mesa (voting station) in the sample, and the number of times a given mesa is included in a sample is evenly distributed, indicating the sample generation program is random.

The sample generation program was run 1,020 times. With no exception all of the 8,141 mesas appeared at least 14 times in a sample. Not a single mesa was excluded from the sample in the test run15 (14).

The Carter Center therefore concluded that:

The sample drawing program used Aug. 18 to generate the 2nd audit sample generated a random sample from the universe of all mesas (voting stations) with automated voting machines. The sample was not drawn from a group of pre-selected mesas16 (15).

Given this evidence, the Carter Center’s conclusion appears to be the only logical conclusion. It follows that the theory of electronic fraud put forth by Hausmann and Rigobon, and supported by others in Venezuela, appears to be logistically impossible.

The Econometric Evidence

Ignoring the technical difficulties in conceiving of how such a fraud might have taken place, let us turn to the econometric evidence presented by Hausmann and Rigobon. They provide two pieces of evidence; we will look at the second one first. In this part of their paper17 (16), the authors use a regression analysis to test whether the sample drawn for the audit is truly a random sample. Without going into the mathematics of the model, the authors use a regression to test whether the 'Sí' votes in the August 15 signatures gathered for the recall (in November-December 2003) are related differently to the audited sample as compared to how they are related to the overall universe of polling centers18 (17). The theory is that if the audited sample is truly a random sample of the polling centers, then the relationship between the signatures and the 'Sí' vote count in the audited sample should not be significantly different from that in the rest of the 4580 voting centers.

The authors find that this relationship is significantly different, and interpret this as evidence of fraud.

But there is a very serious problem with this analysis. Let us return to the example offered by Hausmann and Rigobon in their paper, which describes the fraud that their regression model is here attempting to detect. Say there are 3000 voting centers that are rigged, and 1580 left 'clean' for the CNE and observers to draw their sample from. How is this division to be made, and the sample drawn? Hausmann and Rigobon assume that the both of these selections are drawn randomly19 (18). If that is the case, we would expect that the sample would show a very different proportion of YES votes than the total count. In other words, if the real vote was, as Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates allege, — 59-41 YES, instead of the opposite (59-41) NO, the official count — then the sample should reflect that.

We can do a statistical test to see how likely is it that the audited sample, which Hausmann and Rigobon allege was randomly drawn from 'clean' voting machines, came from a universe of voters that actually voted for the recall.

Table 1: Referendum Results*

YES
NO
Percent YES

National Total
3,584,835
4,917,279
42.16

Audited Sample
145,785
204,640
41.60


Source: Carter Center (September 17, 2004)
* for centers with electronic voting

Table 1 shows the percentage of YES and NO votes in the audited sample and from the total universe of machines20 (19).

As can be seen from the table, the number of YES votes for the sample (41.6 percent) is very close to the number for the overall universe (42.2 percent).

Table 2: Probability of Occurrence of the Actual Audited Sample Under Various Assumptions Regarding the True (Non-Fraudulent) Percentage 'YES' Votes in the National Referendum

National vote percentage YES
Audit vote percentage YES
Approximate chance of lower audited percentage

50.10
41.60
1 in 1,400,000

55.00
41.60
1 in 73,000,000,000,000

59.00
41.60
1 in 28,000,000,000,000,000,000,000


Source: CNE, Carter Center, and authors� calculations (see Appendix)

Table 2 shows the probability of finding a sample with 41.6 percent YES votes under various assumptions for the true mean of the universe from which it came. For example, if the Penn & Schoen exit poll reflected the correct (non-fraudulent) total (59 percent YES, 41 percent NO), then the probability of the audited sample showing only 41.6 percent YES would be less than one in 28 billion trillion.

If the opposition had won by a smaller margin, 55 to 45 percent, the probability of the audited sample having only 41.6 percent YES is less than one in 72 trillion.

Finally, if Chávez had barely been recalled, with 50.1 YES to 49.9 NO, the chances of drawing a sample of voting centers with the audited sample’s percentage of 41.6 percent YES is still miniscule, at less than one in a million.

The theory that there was electronic fraud that could have even come close to affecting the result of the election is therefore not plausible, under Hausmann and Rigobon’s assumptions about how it could have taken place21 (20).

There is another possibility that would allow for the observed vote count in the audited sample. The 'clean' centers and audited sample could have been selected, not randomly as Hausmann and Rigobon suggest, but from very pro-government voting centers. In this way the audited sample could show a yes vote similar to a fraudulent total vote, even if the real (non-altered) vote count had a much higher proportion of YES votes. But in this case the audited sample would not appear to be representative of the electorate; it would have to look, by other measures, very pro-Chávez — especially if there were significant fraud in the rigged voting centers.

One obvious measure is the percentage of votes for Hugo Chávez22 (21) in the 2000 election, in the centers that were selected to be audited in the 2004 referendum23 (22). By this measure, the audited centers do not appear significantly different from the rest of the electorate. The audited centers show a total of 61.8 percent for Chávez, as opposed to 61.4 percent for the country. As shown in Appendix below, this is well within the margin of sampling error.

In light of these results, it is difficult to interpret Hausmann and Rigobon’s one regression as significant evidence of fraud. It is much more likely to be the result of a spurious correlation or a misspecification in the model that they used24 (23).

Results Using Exit Poll Data

Hausmann and Rigobon also claim to find evidence of electronic fraud by means of another statistical test. As in the analysis of the sample, they use a statistical model in which the intention of the voters — an unobservable variable — is measured, with some error, by different events. These include exit polls conducted on August 15, and the petition signatures. Both of these data are assumed to be imperfect measures of the voters' intentions, and even possibly biased.

But the authors assume that the errors in the measures of voter’s intentions are not correlated with each other25 (24). In other words, although we would expect (and the authors assume) a correlation between the signatures and the exit polls, they assume that in the absence of fraud there is no such relation between the way the signatures and the exit polls, as measures of the (unobservable) intention of the voters, actually differ from this intention, and therefore the vote itself.

The full model is explained in detail and is derived mathematically in the appendices of the paper, and will not be reproduced here. The basic implication of their model, given the assumption, is that if both the exit polls and the signatures differ from the referendum vote in a similar manner then this is the result of fraud26 (25) . The authors find such a correlation, and interpret this as evidence of fraud.

But their result in this section depends on a crucial assumption that is difficult to justify in this situation, given the sources of the exit poll data: that the errors in the measurement from the exit poll and those from the signatures are uncorrelated. While the signature gathering was subject to controls and international monitoring, and thus can be taken as official data, the same cannot be said about the exit poll data. The exit poll data provided by Súmate was reported by Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates, and showed the opposition to have won the referendum by 59 percent (Yes) to 41 percent (No). The other exit poll data used in this analysis was provided by the opposition group Primero Justicia, and showed the opposition winning with 62 percent of the vote. These data are not just measured with error but highly implausible. We have no idea how they were gathered or if there was fraud involved in their collection. As such, it is entirely possible that the error term for the exit polls would be correlated with the error term for the signatures. If this is the case, the empirical estimates of the Hausmann and Rigobon model in this section would say nothing about fraud in the election; rather they would simply be a product of how the exit poll data was collected.

Indeed it is highly unusual to be asked to question the results of an election in which so many controls and monitoring procedures were in place, on the basis of implausible exit poll data that was provided (and gathered) by political activists with no verifiable controls or monitoring. Although Hausmann and Rigobon’s analysis does not require this data to be accurate, it does require that its errors be uncorrelated with those of the signatures, something that cannot be assumed without any verifiable knowledge or observation of where the data came from. It is also unusual that the authors used only this opposition data, and ignored other exit poll data that more closely predicted the official results of the election. For example, exit polling by the American polling firm Evans/ McDonough Company, Inc. polled 53,045 voters and found a result of 55% NO to 45% YES27 (26) .

There are many ways in which the model in this section could have been mis-specified even if the political activists who gathered the exit poll data had done their best to deliver an honest and reliable result28 (27) .

But it must be emphasized that there is no need to determine exactly how the model in Hausmann and Rigobon’s analysis may have been mis-specified. The fact remains that their theory of how the fraud could have taken place is untenable, as the Carter Center has demonstrated. And the audited sample, which has been shown clearly to be a random sample of the entire universe of voting machines, matched the electronic results almost exactly. On this basis we can safely reject Hausmann and Rigobon’s econometric evidence.

Conclusion

Conspiracy theories abound, and of course it is impossible to disprove them. There are tens of millions of people throughout the world who remain convinced that the massacres of September 11 were orchestrated by the Bush Administration. A best-selling book in France maintains that the no airplane ever hit the Pentagon29 (28) . There are detailed web sites where the evidence is marshaled, and arguments spun.

The theory that the Venezuelan referendum was stolen is different from other implausible conspiracy theories in that so long as most of the Venezuelan media is controlled by the conspiracy theorists30 (29), it will maintain a significant base of support.

But Hausmann and Rigobon’s paper provides no credible evidence of fraud in the Venezuelan elections. There is no 'black swan' here; maybe a white duck that got stuck in an oil slick.

It would be best if Venezuela could get beyond this referendum, and of course the more democratically oriented members of the opposition would like to accept the results and move on. The issue has implications beyond Venezuela as well — most importantly for the effectiveness of international monitoring in elections. This was one of the most carefully monitored elections in modern history, with both the Carter Center and the Organization of American States playing a major role. If this level of monitoring and verification by some of the most experienced election observers in the world, in a case where the election was not even close, cannot produce a credible result, then the whole system of international monitoring would have to be called into question.

Fortunately this is not the case. The audit went smoothly; and if the vote had been close, or there had been any evidence of electronic fraud, the Venezuelan electoral authorities or the international observers could have asked for a complete count of the paper ballots. They did not do so, because there was no evidence that the result was in any way wrong. That remains the case today; and by now it is unlikely that even a full audit would convince many of the doubters, since they would maintain that sufficient time had elapsed for all the ballot boxes to be stuffed so as to match the machines.

As American pollsters hired by opposing sides in this election pointed out, every reliable pre-election poll predicted that the recall effort would fail. The most recent and comprehensive polls before the vote predicted the actual margin of victory very closely31 (30) . With a huge turnout of poor people and first-time voters, which favored the government, the results were even more predictable on Election Day. All the available evidence except for highly questionable exit poll data supplied by opposition activists points in the same direction. There is still no reason to question the results.

Appendix

Suppose, as in the hypothetical example provided by Hausmann and Rigobon, there was widespread voting machine fraud in the election, but with clean centers placed randomly throughout the country, so that the demographics at the clean centers represent the demographics of the country as a whole. Suppose also that the audit was performed on a set of centers chosen randomly from among only the clean centers. Then the results of the vote in the audited centers would, within some margin of error, reflect the election results across the nation had there been no fraud. This appendix serves to estimate the likely margin of error in the results in the audited centers with respect to the entire population.

We can then find the probability of getting the result that was found in the audited sample (41.6 percent 'sí'), under various assumptions for the true vote tally for all votes. That is, under the assumption that the true total vote tally was different from the reported vote tally due to fraud. If the sample were simply a random sample of voters taken from the clean centers, then this would be a simple calculation, based on a binomial distribution. It would be analogous to calculating the probability of getting, e.g., 72 'heads' from 100 tosses of a fair coin (where the population mean is assumed to be 50).

But in this case is it slightly more complicated, because the audited sample is not a sample of voters, but a sample of voting centers. Because each voting center has a different proportion of 'sí' and 'no' votes, the margin of error for a sample of voting centers will be larger than the margin of error for a sample of voters. Also, we will have to construct a distribution of centers for the universe of centers, in order to estimate this margin of error. We can estimate the margin of error based on a stochastic model of the vote. In constructing this model, we will have to assume certain distributional properties of the universe of voting centers.

Statistics of the audited centers

The data listed 200 centers on the audit list. Four of these centers had no recall vote listed, leaving 196 available for analysis. These centers varied in the total number of valid votes cast as well as the percentage of votes for and against recall.

Let the number of 'sí' votes at the th center be denoted by and the number of 'no' votes be denoted by . Then the log of the turnout turns out to be roughly distributed as normal with mean 7.6 and standard deviation 0.7. The log of the vote ratio is also normally distributed with mean 0.6 and standard deviation 2.3. With a Pearson’s r of only 0.009, the correlation between and is insignificant. This is consistent with independence of the two variables.

Stochastic model of the audited centers

Suppose the voting centers across the entire country have clean turnouts and vote ratios independent and lognormally distributed with means and standard deviations as in the audited sample. Then we can randomly generate 150 sample centers and estimate the audited vote. Repeating the process 1,000 times and computing the standard deviation of the proportion of 'sí' votes produces an estimate of the margin of error. As a result of this process, we estimate the audited sample to have a standard deviation in the proportion of 'sí' votes of only 1.8%. By implication, there is a 95% chance that there an audit of 150 voting centers would result in a vote proportion of 41%, plus or minus 3.5%.
Implications for the recall referendum

Let us assume a margin of error due to center sampling based on the above stochastic model. Let us also assume that 41.0% of the national vote was in favor of recall. Then there is a 37% chance that an audited sample would consist of more than 41.6% of votes in favor. That is, the audit results are consistent with the reported national results.

Let us now assume that the national vote was actually 59% in favor of recall — as in the Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates / Súmate exit poll used by Hausmann and Rigobon — but this was not the reported result due to fraud. Despite any such fraud in the centers where machines were rigged, the probability of getting the observed total in the audited sample of no more than 41.6% in favor is approximately 1 in 28 thousand billion billion.

Rather than 59%, let us assume that the national vote in favor of recall was only 50.1%. That is, assume that the opposition barely won recall vote, but most of the machines were fixed to show Chávez winning by 57.8-42.2 percent. Then the chances of getting the observed result in the clean, audited sample of only 41.6% in favor would be less than 1 in a million.

Table A: Election Odds
National vote percentage
Audit vote percentage
Difference in Standard Deviations
Approximate chance of lower audited percentage

41.02
41.60
0.33
2 in 3

50.10
41.60
-4.83
1 in 1,400,000

55.00
41.60
-7.61
1 in 73,000,000,000,000

59.00
41.60
-9.88
1 in 28,000,000,000,000,000,000,000


Source: CNE, Carter Center, and authors� calculations

We can therefore conclude that the probability of drawing the observed audited sample, under the circumstances described in Hausmann and Rigobon’s hypothetical electronic fraud scenario, is infinitesimally small, if there were enough fraud to affect the outcome of the election.

There is one other possibility of electronic fraud, in a slightly different scenario than that described by Hausmann and Rigobon. As noted in the text, another scenario could be the case in which the audited sample, and/or the clean centers are not chosen randomly from the universe of centers. In this case a sample that is very disproportionately pro-government could be chosen, so that the vote tally in the audited sample matches the recorded (fraudulent) vote total for the universe of centers, even though the true mean for the universe is much lower than reported due to fraud. But in this case the audited sample would appear pro-government by other measures. And it does not: to see this, we can look at how the voting centers subject to the audit in 2004 voted in the 2000 election. As between Chávez and Arias (the second place finisher), Chávez received 61.8 of the vote in these audited centers; in the country overall he received 61.4 percent. This difference is far smaller than the margin of error of 3.5 percent for the sample of audited centers.


Footnotes:

1. Hausmann, Ricardo; and Roberto Rigobon. 'En busca del cisne negro: Análisis sobre la evidencia estadística sobre fraude electoral en Venezuela'. Sept. 3, 2004. Available at http://www.Súmate.org/documentos/Informe%20ejecutivo%20%20En%20busca%20del%20cisne%20negro.pdf

2. Mark Weisbrot is economist and Co-Director, and David Rosnick and Todd Tucker are research associates, at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The authors wish to acknowledge Daniel McCarthy for his assistance.

3. 'Audit of Chávez Vote Upholds the Results'. Los Angeles Times. Aug. 22, 2004.

4. The firm states that it was hired by a group of opposition Venezuelan businessmen, but has not revealed the name(s) of its client(s).

5. 'U.S. Poll Firm in Hot Water in Venezuela'. Associated Press. Aug. 19, 2004.

6. Hausmann 2004. P. 25.

7. Webb-Vidal, Andy. 'Chávez opponents face poll losses after recall failure'. Financial Times. Sept. 7, 2004. Gunson, Phil. 'Still calling vote a fraud, Chávez foes plan challenge'. Miami Herald. Sept. 10, 2004. Luhnow, David; and Jose de Cordoba. 'Academics' Study Backs Fraud Claim In Chávez Election

The rest of the post that was cut off:

Claim In Chávez Election'. Wall Street Journal. Sept. 7, 2004. 'Debates and Dilemmas: Venezuela’s referendum'. The Economist. Sept. 18, 2004.

8. In the original, 'Como dijera Karl Popper, el observar 1000 cisnes blancos no demuestra la veracidad de la tesis de que todos los cisnes son blancos. Sin embargo, observar un cisne negro sí permite rechazarla. Parafraseando a Popper, nuestro cisne blanco es que no hubo fraude. Los resultados que obtenemos constituyen un cisne negro. La hipótesis alternativa de que sí hubo fraude es consistente con nuestros resultados y por tanto no podemos rechazarla'. Hausmann 2004, p. 25-26.

9. 'Report on an Analysis of the Representativeness of the Second Audit Sample, and
the Correlation between Petition Signers and the Yes Vote in the Aug. 15, 2004
Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela'. The Carter Center. Sept. 17, 2004. http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/nondatabase/report091604.pdf (31)

10. McCoy, Jennifer. 'What really happened in Venezuela?' The Economist. Sept. 4, 2004.

11. Felten, Edward; and Aviel Rubin and Adam Stubblefield. 'Analysis of Voting Data from the Recent Venezuela Referendum'. Sept. 1, 2004. Available at http://venezuela-referendum.com/ (32)

12. It is worth noting that two of the five members of the CNE are staunchly pro-opposition. (See Forero, Juan. 'Chávez Urges Deference for Electoral Board'. The New York Times. Sept. 1, 2003). All of the preparations and execution of the fraud conspiracy would have to have eluded them as well as the international observers.

13. 'Conned in Caracas

The continuation of the second cutoff:

13. 'Conned in Caracas' was the title of a September 9 piece by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, based on the Hausmann and Rigobon paper: 'Both the Bush Administration and former President Jimmy Carter were quick to bless the results of last month’s Venezuelan recall vote, but it now looks like they were had. A statistical analysis by a pair of economists suggests that the random-sample 'audit' results that the Americans trusted weren’t random at all.'

14. For a complete report on the auditing of the referendum, see 'Audit of the Results of the Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela'. The Carter Center. Aug. 26, 2004. Available at www.cartercenter.org/documents/1820.pdf [33]

15. The Carter Center. Sept. 17, 2004. P. 6.

16. The Carter Center. Sept. 17, 2004. P. 7.

17. Pages 20-24 and Appendix 2 of their paper.

18. The regression is: Log SI = Constant + Log FIRMA + D * FIRMA + Log Electores Reafirmazo + D * Log Electores Reafirmazo + Log Electores Nuevos + D * Log Electores Nuevos + Log Electores No Votantes + D * Log Electores no Votantes + D
Where SI = the number of YES votes in the referendum;
FIRMA = the number of signatures (in November-December 2003, on the recall petition);
Electores Reafirmazo = the number of registered voters at the time of the signature gathering;
Electores Nuevos = the number of new voters (registered after the signature drive);
Electores no votantes = number of registered voters that did not vote;
and D is a dummy variable that takes on the value of 1 for voting centers that are in the audited sample and zero for non-audited centers.
The authors report a coefficient of .105 (significant at the .01 level) for the variable D * FIRMA, indicating that the elasticity of YES votes with respect to signatures is 10.5 percent higher for audited than for non-audited centers. The authors interpret this as evidence that the sample was not was not a random sample of the universe of voting centers. (Hausmann and Rigobon, pp.22-24)

19. 'Para ejemplificar, supongamos que de los 4580 centros automatizados en nuestra base de datos, se alteraron los resultados en 3000 centros y no en los demás. Supongamos además que los 1580 centros no alterados fueron escogidos aleatoriamente' [italics added]. Hausmann 2004. P. 21. The authors further note that this random selection would result in a sample that would appear socially and regionally representative (P. 21).

20. The Carter Center. Sept. 17, 2004. P. 5. The percentages for the totals (58.4 NO to 41.6 YES) differ slightly from the totals for the whole country (59.2 NO to 40.7 YES), because these include only the centers that used machines. About 1.4 million voters (out of 9.8 million total) used only paper ballots.

21. Of course it is possible that just a handful of machines were rigged, increasing the government’s margin of victory only slightly. But this would be a rare crime indeed: lacking not only opportunity and evidence, but also motive.

22. The numbers show the percent of votes received by Chávez as between him and the candidate who finished second Francisco Arias Cardenas (with most of the remaining votes). To see the national level results, see 'Elecciones 30 de julio de 2000: Presidente de la República - Total Votos a nivel Nacional y por Entidad Federal'. Consejo Nacional Electoral (Venezuela). http://www.cne.gov.ve/estadisticas/e015.pdf (34)

23. The actual audit was conducted on 150 of these 196 centers.

24. It is worth noting that this regression (see footnote 18) is only one of many regressions that could have been run to test whether the sample was significantly different from the rest of the voting centers in its relationship to the signatures. This is true not only because of the choice of control variables but also because there were 4580 voting centers in the referendum, but only 2700 centers for gathering signatures. Since the latter did not map directly to the voting centers, this would allow for many possible regressions of the referendum vote on the signatures, with many different data sets and/or control variables.
Hausmann and Rigobon also take 1000 random samples from the total number of polling centers and run the same regression, finding a significant result (at the 1 percent level, the same as in the regression in footnote 18) in less than one percent of the regressions. But this does nothing to validate their regression results in footnote 18; if the significant coefficient stemmed from a spurious correlation, then we would expect exactly what they found for the 1000 regressions run on different samples with the same variables.

25. In terms of their model,

Ei = a*Xi +epsi
Si = b*Xi +etai
where Ei is the exit poll data, Si is the signature data gathered in Nov/Dec 2003, Xi is the voter’s intention and epsi and etai are error terms. It is these two error terms, not Ei and Si, which are assumed to be uncorrelated.

26. In Hausmann and Rigobon’s model they derive the equation

cov (psi1, psi2)_IV = var(Fi) + f*(1/a-c1iv)cov(Ei,Si) + f^2var(Si),

where psi1 and psi2 are the residuals of regressions of the voting results (Vi) on Ei and Si plus other control variables. As noted by the IV attached to the left hand term, the authors use instrumental variable estimation, for reasons explained in their appendix 1. The term c1iv is the instrumental variable estimator of the coefficient on Ei of the first IV regression. Fi and f are fraud variables associated with the machine rigging; if both are zero the covariance of these residuals would be zero. The authors find a positive covariance when they test this equation; they conclude that this positive covariance is evidence of fraud.

This is one of several steps in which the assumption that the error terms (espi and etai, see footnote beta) are necessary for the authors' result; on this assumption the authors are able to use Ei as an instrument for Sí, and vice versa. But even ignoring the IV estimation, if these error terms are positively correlated, , the right hand side of the equation for this covariance would have additional positive terms. This would give a positive correlation between the residuals — cov(psi1, psi2) > 0 even if f=o (i.e. the absence of fraud). Therefore, Hausmann and Rigobon’s conclusion that there is fraud, in this part of the paper, depends on the questionable assumption that the error terms for the signatures and the exit polls are uncorrelated.

27. Although this firm was hired by CITGO — owned by the state oil company, PDVSA — it is a reputable firm and it made its methodology transparent and available. It is difficult to see why this data would be ignored while only opposition-supplied data was used in the Hausmann/Rigobon analysis.

28. For example, we know that there was fraud in the signature gathering process, as 375,000 signatures were disqualified (in addition to the more than 800,000 sent to be 'repaired.') The disqualified signatures included dead people, children, foreigners, etc. At the same time, the people who conducted the exit poll could have biased results, depending on who would be willing to answer their questions. It is likely that the pro-Chávez areas would have the highest incidence of refusals to answer; and it is entirely possible that these areas would have the largest errors in the signature gathering process, since these areas would present greater opportunities for fraud in the signature gathering (because of the relative scarcity of signers). This is just one example of a number of possibilities that could lead to a correlation between the error terms for the signatures and the exit polls.

29. Riding, Alan. 'Sept. 11 as Right-Wing U.S. Plot: Conspiracy Theory Sells in France'. New York Times. June 21, 2002. This article discusses the book 'L’Effroyable Imposture' or 'The Horrifying Fraud' by French author Thierry Meyssan

30. In Venezuela most of the broadcast and print media is controlled and used as a political tool by the opposition to the government. This is important with respect to this discussion, because conspiracy theories such as those required for the electoral fraud discussed in this paper, that would not gain a large following in most other democracies, sometimes do so in Venezuela.

31. 'Venezuela Recall: Analysis of Pre-Election Polling'. Evans / McDonough Company, Inc. Sept. 2004.

Links:
(1) http://www.sumate.org/documentos/Informe ejecutivo - En busca del cisne negro.pdf
(2) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn3
(3) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn4
(4) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn5
(5) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn6
(6) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn7
(7) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn8
(8) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn9
(9) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn10
(10) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn11
(11) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn12
(12) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn13
(13) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn14
(14) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn15
(15) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 16
(16) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 17
(17) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 18
(18) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 19
(19) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 20
(20) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 21
(21) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 22
(22) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 23
(23) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 24
(24) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 25
(25) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 26
(26) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 27
(27) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 28
(28) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 29
(29) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 30
(30) http://www.cepr.net/publications/fraud_venezu_conspiracy.htm#ftn 31
(31) http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/nondatabase/report091604.pdf
(32) http://venezuela-referendum.com/
(33) http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1820.pdf
(34) http://www.cne.gov.ve/estadisticas/e015.pdf



— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Source URL (retrieved on Dec 26 2009 - 07:56): http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/705




Comment: What our lil poster has 'proved' is, he is a very willing conned dupe!

What our post has proved is that once again you use Chavez's own propaganda.

[QUOTE=cHAVEZLOVING GOON]13. 'Conned in Caracas' was the title of a September 9 piece by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, based on the Hausmann and Rigobon paper: 'Both the Bush Administration and former President Jimmy Carter were quick to bless the results of last month’s Venezuelan recall vote, but it now looks like they were had. A statistical ****ysis by a pair of economists suggests that the random-sample 'audit' results that the Americans trusted weren’t random at all.'

14. For a complete report on the auditing of the referendum, see 'Audit of the Results of the Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela'. The Carter Center. Aug. 26, 2004. Available at www.cartercenter.org/documents/1820.pdf [33]

QUOTE]

And claim it is truth just who is the willing dupe?
You don’t get it Chavez is a holding on to power by way of fraud!
He is destroying his countries own economy and getting filthy rich doing it.
The lies are all over your post.
Point 30 is so funny I almost fell out of my chair laughing!!!!
Your using a site controlled by Chavez and sayig it debunks anti-Chavez information rotflol.
Come on you tool!

And you mama will tell you...

..., and she’ll be cross with you for walking around without any pants or panties on! Stop your crying lil boy and look at what’s happened to you!

Just like your depantzed!

Another stupid post!

` ~galljdaj+;175643:
..., and she’ll be cross with you for walking around without any pants or panties on! Stop your crying lil boy and look at what’s happened to you!

Just like your depantzed!

Do you have apoint other then the one on top of your head?

Even my mom could kick your useless old a55!
What a usless sack of fecal matter.

Of course your mama is soo much bigger...

... something like you has to come from a whale size.

Doesn’t matter, she’s not going to be happy having to keep on fighting your battles for you!

Any time you feel froggy step on up

flaming hoe mo:
... something like me has to come from a whale size.

Doesn’t matter, she’s not going to be happy having to keep on fighting your battles for you!

I will even buy you coffee and a lunch cause I know your welfare receiving a55 has no money.
Why do you feel the need to project your own life issues on others?

Quote:

Psychological projection or projection bias (including Freudian Projection) is the unconscious act of denial of a person’s own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to the weather, the government, a tool, or to other people. Thus, it involves imagining or projecting that others have the same feelings or motives, rather than what they really think.

We know you have a fetish for womens underwear!
We know your mom was a 400 pound hoe plying her trade on the street corner and your dad was some freak who raped you with butsecks and had you turning tricks on the corner as well.

That explains why your so warped, sick, twisted freak and stupid I almost feel sorry for you.

Sure, i'm the one with the psych problem

Review the posts!

You post less than 1%, and I post more than 95%, Meaning 99% of your posts say nothing except problems against peoples! with Zero that you would make better! Better for all Peoples even those you have problems with!

My posts strive for a better for everyone, your sorry ass and even the midget expert!

You and the expert want to kill everybody that is not your slave like servants!

Ans of course I am the one with the psych problem!

More of your mama I didn’t do it?

Theres a saying about numbers and statistics but

=:
Review the posts!

You post less than 1%, and I post more than 95%, Meaning 99% of your posts say nothing except problems against peoples! with Zero that you would make better! Better for all Peoples even those you have problems with!

My posts strive for a better for everyone, your sorry ass and even the midget expert!

You and the expert want to kill everybody that is not your slave like servants!

Ans of course I am the one with the psych problem!

More of your mama I didn’t do it?

The gist of it is that the people who throw them out there are 100% full of crap.
I believe in your case this is a very correct case.

I dont reckon you heard

about Billy Bob Horton. He’s a PhD at Bean Creek Community College (USA) and he’s written a thesis titled